Tax Payment - Ouch!

My first installment of tax (representing about 80% of the total) was paid today. The remaining 20% is due on 25th April.

Even with taxes at 16% of total income (less a few allowances), writing a single cheque for the equivalent of nearly 13% of my annual income is a rather painful experience. Still, it's a better system than pay-as-you-earn as I get the use of the money for longer.

As with previous years, I had been intending to put the tax payment on my credit card to earn the reward points and get a small amount of additional interest on the money but HSBC put an end to that scheme. First, HSBC declared that tax payments made on credit cards would not earn reward points (unlike the last time I did this). Second, HSBC also messed up the application for the necessary increase in the credit limit by allocating it to a credit card which is not linked to my on-line payment accounts (I have two HSBC credit cards). By the time I noticed the mistake, it was too late to fix it. This was the first time I have ever had a problem with HSBC in over 20 years of banking with them.